With M. NIght Shyamalan about to unleash another suspense thriller on the American public, my mind drifts back to the director's first movie, "The Sixth Sense," and that kid who saw dead people. I refer to Haley Joel Osment who, at the age of 11, received his first Academy Award nomination for doing a little of this:

Of course, "The Sixth Sense" isn't the only movie that made Osment famous. The talented young actor also appeared in "Forrest Gump," "Pay It Forward," "A.I." and "Secondhand Lions." But after 2003's "Lions," his profile diminished a bit and his work primarily consisted of doing voices for video games.

Sadly, in 2006, he crashed his car in L.A. while apparently driving drunk. He eventually pleaded to one count of driving under the influence of alcohol and one count of marijuana possession, resulting in a sentence that included three years' probation and 60 days of rehab.

Thankfully, though, the story doesn't end in rehab. In the two years since that incident, Osment has stayed out of trouble. The 20-year-old recently finished shooting the film "Montana Amazon" opposite Olympia Dukakis and is next slated to star with Max von Sydow in "Truth & Treason." (His sister Emily, meanwhile, has done quite well for herself as a star of "Hannah Montana.")

Will Haley Joel climb back up the Hollywood ladder and eventually earn another Oscar nod? That remains to be seen. For now, he seems to have learned his lesson from the drunk driving incident, which is a very good thing. And he's even starting to look more like a young man and less like Cole Sears, as evidenced by this photo:

Photo: Wire Image 

Rich or Rehab appears every Tuesday morning on Strollerderby.